January 28, 2017

This sign over the door says: If you loathe Trump, you will get comfort here. The readership — dwindling? surging? — is offered a safe space. I don't want a safe space. But let's see what's beneath that headline:

If other new occupants of the White House wanted to be judged by their first 100 days in office, President Trump seems intent to be judged by his first 100 hours. No president in modern times, if ever, has started with such a flurry of initiatives on so many fronts in such short order.

The action-oriented approach reflected a businessman’s idea of how government should work: Issue orders and get it done. But while the rapid-fire succession of directives on health care, trade, abortion, the environment, immigration, national security, housing and other areas cheered Americans who want Mr. Trump to shake up Washington, it also revealed a sometimes unruly process that may or may not achieve the goals he has outlined.

That's a fair start. If you like Trump, you can read that as high praise. Imagine if a liberal President entered the White House and got things moving so quickly. The NYT would lavish praise.

What gets counted as "unruly" and potentially ineffective?

Orders were signed without feedback from the agencies they would affect. Policy ideas were floated and then retracted within hours. Meetings and public events were scheduled and then canceled....

I'm pretty sure those who like where Trump seems to be going have no problem with any of that and might even portray it in a positive light. He's not getting bogged down in process...

To get off to a powerful start, Mr. Trump chose speed over process.

... and the process is shaping up as he goes:

In hopes of sharpening the process, Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, and Jared Kushner, his senior adviser and son-in-law, are forming what is being loosely called the Strategic Initiatives Group, a mini-think tank within the White House comprising analysts who can grapple with large-scale issues like cybersecurity.

Such a group would have as many as a dozen strategists, and could help to centralize policy-making on some topics by Mr. Bannon and Mr. Kushner. Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, who knows Washington well and who works in conjunction with the two, is likely to run more of the day-to-day operations of the West Wing, according to one person involved in the planning....

There's much less comfort here for Trump-haters than the headline seems to promise:

Mr. Trump has historically run his business, and his campaign, with a high level of intentional chaos.

So he knows what he's doing! Other people just can't see it, especially if they are afraid of what looks confusing and don't like where it's going whether it's organized or not.

The power struggle is fascinating:

Mr. Kushner has emerged as the most important figure in Mr. Trump’s White House besides the president. He has told several people that all things on nearly every topic “run through me,” according to two people with direct knowledge. He had previously sought to limit Ms. Conway’s influence, according to insiders, although she consistently has Mr. Trump’s ear.

The internal sway of Mr. Bannon, a former chairman of the conservative news and opinion website Breitbart, has grown with the advance of Mr. Trump’s agenda this week, much of which he helped shape. Mr. Priebus is still struggling to master the building. He has not always been kept abreast of what is taking place, and Mr. Spicer’s troubles have been seen as potential strikes against Mr. Priebus, who brought him in from the Republican National Committee.

I'm tempted to say that sounds like a new season of "The Apprentice." But I'd be losing my grip. This is real.

That was a great article in The New York Times. Written by Charlie Savage, Peter Baker, and Maggie Haberman. The headline is completely off however.

Too many rapid assessments. It's impossible to know the impact of what he's done now. As I said previously, speaking for myself I alternate between depression and elation. I need a monitor - can't get much info from any one moment in time, gotta look back at weeks or months. People will say they know, but it's just our feelings (I feel). Who knows. If you asked me this past weekend, he looked really bad. If you ask me this weekend, I'd say on balance he had a great week.

See Scott Adams for a different take. Trump has flooded the zone (intentionally!) with a bunch of Executive Orders so that the MSM can't fixate on any one thing. The MSM has gone off on a tangent regarding crowd size while POTUS accomplished more in one week than Obama did in 8 years.

Bannon and Trump schooled the MSM. The crowd size controversy was rope-a-dope.

The agencies work for the people of America, not vice versa. Why would Trump consult with them?

My boss rarely consults with me. He usually just tells me what he wants done. When I get a new boss, he has different ideas of what he wants done, and my job is to implement those new ideas, not argue with him that I liked the old way better.

He is re-making the Republican party which now stands for huge deficits, against open trade, increasing the infrastructure amount denied to Obama and against anything that starts with P: Planned Parenthood, PBS, PRN, public protests, publics petition for his taxes,public facts about the inauguration, public vetting of ethic standards for cabinet members and on it goes-- what is not to like?

I'll be honest, seeing what all Trump has done and how little bitching has been done is making me think that his "petty feud of the day" strategy is working. He has done A LOT of stuff already and all the press wants to discuss, still, is immigration crowd size and his speeches to the CIA et al (which both helps Trump by atomizing criticism AND it makes the press look useless since they won't cover, you know, news). They seem either oblivious or ignorant to what he is actually doing, most of which I support.

And Addams is right. If you do so many things the Left hates at one time, they have a really hard time focusing on which one to bitch about. So they turn into sputtering blobs of bitching.

He is simply acting like the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. It is going to take a while for the bureaucracy to figure out that they now have to take these directives and figure out how to implement them within the law, quickly. I expect some of the new cabinet secretaries, like Tillerson and Ross, who have extensive private sector experience, will see that happens. I see there were some articles this morning complaining about chaos created by the visa ban that was issued. It should have been up to personnel at State and Homeland Security to immediately figure out how to accomplish that, taking into account what was already in progress and how things should work moving forward. Anticipating that something like that was coming they should already have been working on it. Knowing what I know about government bureaucracies I would say they were not.

My wife worked for the Federal Government for the first 16 years we were married, 8 for Social Security then 8 for the IRS. When we went through a re-location she took off from working while our three children were in school and later, after we were empty nesters, she went to work for the same Fortune 500 company from which I retired last year, where she still works. It was a tremendous culture shock for her. People actually had deadlines and budgets, all employees were held accountable for their work, and when it came time to have reductions in force the weak performers were given severance packages and let go. She had a hard time adjusting to the stress, which she had never experienced in government work, where nothing ever seemed to change. But we were talking about this after looking at the news this morning and she said she would never go back to working for the government again. I saw somewhere today that up to half of EPA workforce may be let go. It's about time. I doubt they will be missed.

For a guy "unqualified to be President", he's done way more in a week than anybody else I can think of. Before FDR, the first 100 days was a nothingburger also. Then somebody comes in and upsets the apple cart. This flood of everything also gives YEARS for this to become old news.

He has done A LOT of stuff already and all the press wants to discuss, still, is immigration crowd size and his speeches to the CIA et al (which both helps Trump by atomizing criticism AND it makes the press look useless since they won't cover, you know, news).

The press or Trump is focusing on crowd size? At any rate, no one is focusing on it anymore. It's been left in the dust, rearview mirro and no one will be baited (Trump or Dems) anymore. Well maybe Trump will. He is very baitable.

But your use of the word "stuff" is good. I'm not clear on what all these executive actions add up to.

He is simply acting like the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. It is going to take a while for the bureaucracy to figure out that they now have to take these directives and figure out how to implement them within the law, quickly. I expect some of the new cabinet secretaries, like Tillerson and Ross, who have extensive private sector experience, will see that happens. I see there were some articles this morning complaining about chaos created by the visa ban that was issued. It should have been up to personnel at State and Homeland Security to immediately figure out how to accomplish that, taking into account what was already in progress and how things should work moving forward. Anticipating that something like that was coming they should already have been working on it. Knowing what I know about government bureaucracies I would say they were not.

I'd wonder if their inability to keep up could lead to a culling of the workforce. They have an expected workload they anticipate and dramatically increasing it might drive some to quit. Others might refuse and I have to assume insubordination can show somebody the door.

I saw somewhere today that up to half of EPA workforce may be let go.

Seems too low. If they are crying over an election, then anybody who has cried about it should be let-go. We don't need snowflakes in power.

Media rarely discuss competence (nor are most of them qualified to judge it), but Bannon and Kushner have records of tremendous success as managers of their endeavors. Conway isn't on their level, but her success as campaign manager of a highly flawed candidate was most impressive.

Sebastian: "Too early to say if the shots are hits or misfires. Issuing orders is one thing, executing another." Indeed. But as noted above, at this point the process is the product. Not (only) in the sense that, "doing something" is what the political script requires this week; but in the sense that, he has to pick up the flight controls and see how the craft responds; he has to get stuff started and then see where the openings and resistance points are. To change the metaphor: this is reconnaissance in force. The other side can't tell which probes represent a strong and lasting commitment; all are credible; all are costing them ground and improving his position. They have to fall back on a stronger line and figure out where the main blow will fall, how to counter it.

Insofar as sabotage (leaks, slow-walking, accusations of illegality, walkouts of workforce, etc) become important, I think they will happen after a lag and once the situation settles. Saboteurs need to work within a relatively stable occupation zone. If they are caught in the open, they are outgunned and strung up. So the question for me becomes: will DJT ever allow the situation to settle enough for significant sabotage to occur? Or will it be rolling chaos for the whole term?

I'd wonder if their inability to keep up could lead to a culling of the workforce. They have an expected workload they anticipate and dramatically increasing it might drive some to quit. Others might refuse and I have to assume insubordination can show somebody the door.

Presumably some of the work must needs be done, but of course that is the hostage the rest of the bureaucracy uses as its shield. I wonder whether the head-chopping or the shuffling off to Buffalo can be done to scrape off the encrusted barnacles, and the necessary functionality be provided by consultants who would not be susceptible to civil service barriers. That's what businesses do when their HR policy prevents increases or changes in headcount.

"I'd wonder if their inability to keep up could lead to a culling of the workforce. They have an expected workload they anticipate and dramatically increasing it might drive some to quit. Others might refuse and I have to assume insubordination can show somebody the door."

Those who have never seen the federal goverment bureaucracy in action, up close and personal have no idea how hard it is to get rid of worthless, even insubordinate, employees. The standard practice becomes to assign them nothing to do, or move them to a job they really, really don't want to do and force them to quit. Unfortunately, most of the deadwood are such dolts they don't have other options for employment. It's going to take a while to break enough eggs to make this omelette.

Credit where it's due, though: sounds like a reasonably enhanced article, so good for the NYT for that.

The Media pish to judge ever Trump action so quickly (I have reward a couple of "x is happening in Trump's America" already!) is probably a combination of liberal bias and a need for immediate reaction/hot takes--they seem to feel the need to be the first to make a definitive judgement on everything even when doing so makes them seem ridiculous.

Forgotten whether it was LBJ or Nixon that had the USAF launch "Rolling Thunder" over North Viet Nam. As I recall the results were mixed--a lot of bombers shot down--some political movement on the p art of the North Vietnamese government.

And now Trump has launched "Rolling Chaos". I predict results will be mixed, but you need to abide for a while to see how it all works out. My vote for Trump was really a "Not Hillary" vote; my progressive friends (and I have a few) have their tidy whities in a terrible knot over the vile and vulgar Trump. Well I ask you, do you want a perpetual prevaricator or a Vulgarian as President? I said let's hear it for the East Europeans!

That said--bad pun and all--there's a terrible rumpus under the political bedcovers these days. Give it two or three months to settle down, and lets see what 90 days of Rolling Chaos looks like in the rear view mirror. Could be a good thing--or a smoking smoldering ruin.

Of course, Donald Trump was always going to act like a CEO. Business has been the central experience of his life. He is going to get some stuff wrong and some of his people are going to fuck up. But he isn't going to stop and consult the Democratic bureaucracy. Those people are pretty much goners, it seems to me. They will dance to his tune or he will push them out.

I suspect the largest casualty Trump has caused to date is the idea that a politician is and must lie to the constituents to get elected and that none of them should be held accountable for broken campaign promises. So far he seems to be making a concerted effort to do what he said he would do.

No whining about how Congress, the bureaucracy, weather, or difficulty keeps anyone from getting anything done in this town.

The Trump administration is running the two-minute offense with plenty of audibles and the defense can't get its players on the field or call out coverages. Bannon told The NY Times it's the opposition. The defense needs to up its game or keep getting beat

MK - "The EPA staffers are "still coming to work crying." Mark Steyn said they better be careful least their face be designated a wetland.

Mountain Man, I did get a Federal Employee terminated. It took 8 months of dedicated service on my part and a sympathetic HR staff to do so. Not easy. I'm looking forward to retirement so I can really discuss issues like this. But for now, I am going to have to be careful.

Robert Moses, when he took over the New York Department of Parks in 1934, fired every political employee he could. The civil servants either had to work much harder or got sent to assignments in distant boroughs, e.g. someone living in Staten Island had to work in the Bronx.

Commanche Voter, a bit off topic, but here is an outstanding film of Line Backer II and the Hero who changed the tactics that cost him his career.

This is a privately produced and directed video, very nicely edited and is an in-depth tribute to the father of the director/co-producer and all the B-52 crews that flew so courageously during what became a turkey-shoot at the onset of LB II. Stunning to learn that 113 sorties hit Hanoi and Haiphong within a 15 minute period on one of the final nights. For those interested, the length is 39 minutes

Trump Ran 'Most Chaotic, Poor' Campaign in Modern Historywww.newsmax.com/FareedZakaria/alan-gerber-karl-rove/.../755789/Oct 28, 2016 - As this presidential election draws to its close, I keep wondering: Why has Donald Trump run such an ineffective campaign?

Trump Ran 'Most Chaotic, Poor' Campaign in Modern Historywww.newsmax.com/FareedZakaria/alan-gerber-karl-rove/.../755789/Oct 28, 2016 - As this presidential election draws to its close, I keep wondering: Why has Donald Trump run such an ineffective campaign?

Danno: "Maybe some could be posted at abandoned military bases and shutdown factories across the country."

Excellent suggestion. The EPA staff could work on cleaning up the superfund sites that many of these bases and factories contain. Infrastructure gets improved, environmental goals are met, and a whole lot of Federal workforce gets fresh air, exercise and an appreciation for the virtues of real work.

Maybe we could do a TV show, along the lines of "Dirty Jobs," which profiles each week a different Federal worker, formerly pushing a desk and now turning a wrench or lifting a shovel. President Trump could make guest-host appearances.

Trump understands an important chess concept even if he has never played the game- initiative. There are two common definitions of the word, but in chess it is the second one that applies: "the power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do." It also is one of the concepts behind the war term Blitzkrieg.

I wish I could dig into the old Associated Press archives. I remember on the newspaper copy desk back in '08 stories about how the incoming Obama administration was prepared to do a ton of work during its first 100 days.

Afterwards, I was still following the news of his accomplishments and hearing crickets.

Yancey Ward explains: Trump understands an important chess concept even if he has never played the game- initiative. There are two common definitions of the word, but in chess it is the second one that applies: "the power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do." It also is one of the concepts behind the war term Blitzkrieg.

Excellent suggestion. The EPA staff could work on cleaning up the superfund sites that many of these bases and factories contain. Infrastructure gets improved, environmental goals are met, and a whole lot of Federal workforce gets fresh air, exercise and an appreciation for the virtues of real work.

Hanford would be a good place to start. Not sure how fresh the air would be...

Trump would never impose an across-the-board hiring freeze when running his business. If he wanted to reduce labor costs he would do so in a thoughtful deliberate manner. A government-wide hiring freeze guarantees that some critical positions will go unfilled. That's no way to run a business of the government.

"A government-wide hiring freeze guarantees that some critical positions will go unfilled."Maybe this will help identify what/who is "critical" and whether positions can be consolidated to get the "critical" work done with less.

So, Steve, I take it that you want Trump to hire a bunch of people who think like Trump or are otherwise conservative? That would seem to be appropriate after the Obama Administration scrambled in the final days to fill the bureaucracy with leftists.

Even after Trump's election, if you are a conservative who may have graduated from a traditional religiously-affiliated college and/or who has prior job experience with conservative-type employers, even if you were high in your class with excellent references -- try applying for a regular civil service position with the federal government. See how far it gets.

The left has infested the bureaucracy and pervades throughout. And they hire their own. Sure, a few conservatives will sneak through, but they will keep their mouth shut and lay low because they know if they are openly conservative, unless they know the hiring manager, they will not be hired.

It sounds like Trump is from California. From the Gold Rush to Silicon Valley, the motto has been Fast Failure: "Let’s not stand around debating whether it will work; let’s build it quick, see for ourselves, and then make improvements.”

"A shiny object for the left to fixate on while the adults get the jobs done."

Yes, Trump keeps fixating, tweeting and complaining about coverage of the crowd's size while Bannon writes Executive Orders. Then they give Trump a pen and Trump pretends he's an adult and signs away. They even let Trump play on his Android and watch TV so he stays out of their way while they run the government.

The company I work at (~many-k employees) imposes across-the-board hiring freezes every so often. I don't think this is unusual. In fact, they also impose layoffs every so often. Trump is very much acting as CEO in similar fashion...whittling and shaping the govt company to be lean, efficient, productive, and directed toward the primary goals, and none other.

And yes, it sometimes feels chaotic at my company too.... its life. If the company (stock) does better, the chaos pays off. It also certainly tends to improve focus among the employees - the survivors make sure they are working on the priorities and meet the goals.

There is no reason government employees should be protected from this type of swirl.

The problem with dead wood is that not giving them work doesn't get them out of there. When I was working on the 1980 Decennial Census, we had a GS-12 programmer who had taken on-the-job retirement. She spent her days on the phone with her D.C. Bus driver husband. Spent a year writing a program, then went on vacation right before it went into production. It, of course, blew up. Two of us GS-9 programmers rewrote it from scratch in 2 days, and it worked. Sure, she couldn't do GS-12 level work, so wasn't assigned GS-12 level work, and couldn't be fired because of that. But, if they had, she would have failed, and the numbers would have been late to Congress. So, it was better to just pay her to talk on the phone with her husband, and leave the real work to all of us hungry junior programmers.

So, that was how the 1980 Census was run. The deadwood was collected in a deadwood branch and ignored. After the Census, the first thing done in the inevitable downsizing was to eliminate the deadwood branch. But, they all had seniority, which meant bumping rights, which meant that the hungry junior programmers (now GS-12 journeymen) were the ones pushed out, and not the deadwood. I had moved on by then, to a private contractor (Sherry Univac), but was still in the same building. Luckily.

I must be really old. I remember the 70s and hiring freezes in lots of companies. Then came the massive firings in the early 80s.

It can be done, Steve.

People need to step up. It shows a willingness.

True story. Back in the 90s I spent time talking to people in Accounting. We talked about the 70s and 80s, it was their experience vs my mom's.

A sister of a co-worker worked for I think Contrail? One if the big railway companies. They had a hiring freeze. Her sister kept her job by chipping in and doing what needed doing. One of her jobs was cleaning the bathrooms. In the 90s, she had sinificantly moved up the ladder.

My mom had a salary freeze for 3 years.

Her company shed almost 100,000 employees in about 3 weeks.

She retired with 37 years of service.

It's time for Federal workers to join reality. I tapped my sympathy meter. Not a twitch.

@steve Uhr We occasionally will be granted special hires during these times for the unique skills needed, but they typically need approval at CEO level. Naturally there is reluctance to do this - needs to be an air-tight clear justification.

You'd be surprised at how hungry the more junior folks can get - they will step up and start taking on all or part of the gapped role in order to get the visibility and earn the responsibility for their own. My guess is 90%+ of the cases are resolved this way.

Wouldn't it make more sense to order a x percent reduction in employees over the couse of the next year. Then one can give thought to which positions should be cut. The decision should not be made by a flip of the coin.

There should never be an 'across-the-board' RIF. That is assuming equal value of all departments when we know that there are entire departments that could be cut with no discernible fallout. The hiring freeze is a good start. I like it that Trump has demanded every facet of federal government to account for its existence and worth. High time!

"Trump would never impose an across-the-board hiring freeze when running his business. "

Oh yes he would. In my 41 year career in a Fortune 500 company I saw: across the board hiring freezes (sometimes with exceptions that could only be approved by a VP or senior VP); across the board budget cuts of at least 5%, sometimes more; across the board elimination of all bonuses and performance awards; across the board salary reductions; across the board reductions in travel and training; across the board head-count reductions, both of employees and contract employees. Saw this in the extreme back in 2008, when 50% of our demand disappeared in just a couple of weeks. Reductions were immediate and mandatory, no exceptions. We avoided a layoff only by everyone taking an immediate salary reduction and all bonuses eliminated. Even outstanding offers to new employees who had not reported yet were rescinded.

YW Red. The idea is that any complicated fraud scheme, that requires the intervention of the employee, will be interrupted by his or her absence. Say, every year, during his mandatory, bounced checks go from 0,1,1 per day to 213,191,811 per day. You deduce that he has been covering those checks in the system. Just one example.

The Public in those entities is a joke played on the taxpayer. It means that their worth is less than their expenditure. If NPR is worth its keep it will find funding in the private sector, if not... well, it will go the way of Air America.

It's time for the Left to start funding their hobbyhorses without using state coercion. Do you suppose you can do it, roesch? Quaestor doubts you have the competence.

Spot fires. Spot fires everywhere to keep the media running around wildly with their hair on fire. Trying to stamp out each ember. Trying to cover each random spot fire and create stories about how bad it ll is. Spewing out embers here, there, everywhere...while the real cleansing fire that Trump is managing is getting rid of the deadwood, thinning the forest of the dead, dying trees and freeing up the forest floor from the clogging underbrush.

LOL. Trump has them spinning ineffectively while he is getting on with his work.

steve uhr: "Breezy - I don't know where you work but I doubt very much the freeze applies to filling key positions open as a result of normal attrition. That would not be in the best interest of its stockholders."

LOL

The "Stockholders" exercised their voting privileges to replace the entire leadership team in order to take the "corporation" in a radically different direction.

I'm not very confident in my recollection, but I thought I read that JFK enabled the federal worker's union with an executive order and that it could be undone in the same manner. What's the legal basis for the federal union?

DBQ: "LOL. Trump has them spinning ineffectively while he is getting on with his work"

Not true according to Chuck! According to Chuck it's all a disaster and we were very unfortunate to not have lost in a respectful manner to Hillary. If only we had nominated Kasich we could be fully engaged with the Chuck strategy to lose the Presidency and Senate to the dems but beginning work on our plan to elect enough republicans by 20XX to impeach Hillary!

The MSM is accustomed to politicians assuming control of the Executive Branch where every move is political/election optics first and management second. They have no frame of reference, so it must be chaos.

Trump had eighteen months to plan a course of action. He is approaching the task as he would a corporate acquisition; choose staff for key positions, establish goals, short and long term, layout a plan of action, and execute it.

The assimulation of the incoming management with the acquired corporate structure is what makes or breaks a successful merger. Of course, the difference at hand, is that a company has at-will employees, and the government tenured careerists.

The threat of budget downsizing, from which their union cannot shield them, may be a compelling motivating factor. Human nature being what it is, just as in business, some will trigger their retirement parachutes, and others who may have waited years to move up the flow chart will seize the opportunity for self advancement over political loyalty. We shall see.

It has been reported that there are 2.1 million civilian employees in the executive branch, with a payroll of $267 billion.

Frankly, instead of a freeze, I would not object to a hiring explosion that doubles that 2.1 million. Hire a new person for each existing position, with the same duties. But this time hire people who are hard-working, servant-minded, and fair-minded, with a pro-freedom, limited government philosophy.

Then assign the person currently in that position to reporting to special buildings where their work duties shall consist entire of counting the dots on the ceiling each day and marking that number on a pad of paper. Every month, with those numbers collected on a single sheet of paper, they are to take that paper and shred it (for security reasons or something). Then the following month, repeat. These existing employees are to do nothing else.

It sounds like Trump is from California. From the Gold Rush to Silicon Valley, the motto has been Fast Failure: "Let’s not stand around debating whether it will work; let’s build it quick, see for ourselves, and then make improvements.”

Poppycock, it "worked" until politicians assumed control. Since you mention the Gold Rush, take Charles Crocker for example, under Crocker's direction, the Central Pacific constructed it's part of the the first transcontinental railroad, seven years ahead of schedule without government funding. See Brown's $65 billion dollar boondoggle to nowhere.

Given that we're using personal computers on a Google platform to communicate, I'd argue that Silicon Valley is indeed successful and in a large part because it is a private entity.

Ask yourself this - has any President ever had a real impact on your day to day life? I can't really say it has. I'm far more impacted by incompetent city and county officials than Obama ever was. I honestly believe that people obsessed by the Presidency are uneducated and lack perspective on life.

Alex, if people are obsessed with the Presidency it's because the media are obsessed with the Presidency. If we had more/better coverage of state and local government the populace would be informed that government doesn't just mean D.C.

mock... I believe it's a deeper psychological issue with people. Life can seem so boring or unimportant. If you attach yourself to the Presidency(good or bad) you think that somehow it elevates you above the dreariness of local affairs. Why do you think 3 million women did this march-thing? They bought into the old-line Communist Manifesto that everything is global. But if everything is global and nothing is local, then you achieve a kind of homogeneity. Maybe that homogeneity is appealing to these activists, but that would create a world I would find utterly revolting.

steve uhr said...I am talking about filling critical positions that are vacant through normal attrition. Not political positions which are not covered by the freeze. Think nurse at a VA hospital.

1. They are still hiring Nurses at the VA hospitals. My wife is watching for a position.

2. Fuck any leftist that pretends that they care about the VA and how it treats vets. None of you give a shit. We hate it when you pretend. Obama clearly wanted the VA to treat us as badly as they were. The Vet community is ready to burn the whole place down.